Monday, December 13, 2010

Holy Updates, Batman!

Well, I kinda never got around to posting in October even after I promised. Sorry. Life is a crazy around here. That whole "work" thing is really getting in the way! But in a good way! I am loving about 85% of my jobs. With any luck in 2011, I'll be able to eliminate the 15% I don't like. :)
In the meantime, since my free time is lesser, I am trying to spend more time knitting and less time reading and writing about knitting related things. I have, however, spent lots of time hitting up knitting related sales. LOL, thanks to Knit Picks, Eat Sleep Knit and Tightly Wound Yarn for eating up a lot of my disposable income.
Anyway, I can't blog about some of my current projects because come December 24th or 25th they will be wrapped up under the Christmas tree and opened by (hopefully) appreciative recipients! :) After Christmas (at some point, I am hoping to have this post/set of posts up by 2011), I will blog about my Christmas knitting. I haven't done any Christmas crafting since 2007, so I'm kind of excited about this year's "crop" of Christmas presents.
In the meantime, I have a progress on a couple of my other projects.
First is my 95% finished Lingonberry Scarf (rav link), affectionately termed the "Mulled Grapenberry Scarf" on my Rav projects page. I used two skeins of Elann's Peruvian Baby Cashmere in (surprise surprise) Mulled Grape. I would definitely use this yarn again! It was very soft, and it knitted up nicely. However, I have not yet blocked it (it's been on my to-do list since I finished knitting it in October). This project was also my first time doing kitchener stitch. All I have to say about kitchener is "yick." I'm not a fan! I also did not heed the advice of the advice of TheKnitWitch (who had a lovely video on youtube showing kitchener stitch!) and didn't practice this on worsted weight yarn first....however, in my defense I was in Door County on a mini-vacation at the time and didn't have worsted weight on hand. :)
WIP - Mulled Grapenberry Scarf #1
I did have a horrible frogging incident with this scarf. The pattern calls to knit the first 16 rows (the border), cut a 36 inch tail, and put the border on a empty cable/scrap yarn. Then cast on again for the 2nd border, knit the first 16 rows again and then continue on with the scarf pattern. Well, me, in my infinite wisdom and eagerness to get started decided to cast on, knit the border and continue on with the pattern, THEN come back later and do the 2nd border. So I knitted away on the pattern, and was almost done, so I cast on for the 2nd border. I finished the 2nd border, and held up the two borders together to line them up. And then I realized that on the first border (the one with the rest of the scarf attached), I had skipped a row or something. They didn't match! Crisis!!! I had to rip out the entire scarf. I may have done that with a chocolate-covered strawberry blizzard from DQ, to numb the pain...:) But the 2nd knit through actually was not too bad (since, it was the 2nd time through...). I'll be double-checking things like that in the future....
My 2nd WIP that has been a WIP forever (or since early August....) is my Traveling Woman Shawl (rav link), aka the Gypsy Woman. I am currently working on Chart B...but it's been placed on hold for Christmas knitting. Still, I'm loving it. I'm going to try and finish it up as soon as Christmas is over.
WIP - Gypsy Woman #1
Oh, in case you didn't notice, so far the best place I've found to photograph my FOs is on my piano keyboard. Creativity, I has it.
I am also still knitting away on my Morning Frost Wrap. It is also slow going. I have two halves that have taken up 1 ball of the yarn each. I'm not sure how much longer I want to make it. I might be procrastinating on this because I know I'm going to have to kitchener the two halves together...I don't have any new project pictures but it is twice as big as it was when I last updated.
Coming after Christmas-
1. My Christmas knitting pictures/project notes!
2. 2010 Knitting Resolutions follow up post.
3. 2011 Knitting Resolutions!
4. New project ideas!

1 comment:

PJ said...

Your shawl and scarf are very pretty. I love the deep red color of the shawl. I haven't tried the kitchener stitch yet. I watched a video, and I plan to give it a try. I don't know; I keep putting it off.